


What is Sown

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Jedi Culture, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Jedi Training, Lightsabers, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), The Force, Time Travel, sand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-12-30 02:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: Some plants must be pruned to thrive, and others, once cut, never bloom again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BE ADVISED: updates are probably gonna be slow the next couple weeks as I'm going on a work trip!

Obi-Wan blinks himself awake to the blue shadows of very early morning just a few seconds before he can feel his master lean over his bed and drop a hand on his shoulder.

“S’time to get up?” Obi-Wan garbles, drawing the comforter around his shoulders tighter in reluctance. “S’early, master.”

“Well,” Master Ben replies. “I won’t force you, but I thought you might enjoy a spot of mischief.”

Obi-Wan, whose eyes had been sliding back shut, blinks them open again and finally obliges in rolling over, peering curiously up at his master, who bore a smirk that was very well suited to his face. “Mischief.” Obi-Wan repeats.

“Mm-hmm.” Master Ben nods, and a drop of water lands on Obi-Wan’s nose from his master’s damp hair. Obi-Wan brushes it off ad wonders how well his master _did not_ sleep last night, if he’s already been up and showered. Obi-Wan’s dreams have improved dramatically as his shields were rebuilt, but his master’s problems were more…chronic.

“I’m up.” Obi-Wan nods, and his master steps back so the padawan actually can get up. He disappears back into the living area, giving Obi-Wan privacy to dress and properly wake, and when he exits their room his master even has breakfast ready. They haven’t bothered with the lights, relying instead of the dim of predawn through the windows, and the pale pink-and-silver glow of the bioluminescent vines that have firmly taken hold of the ceiling and most of the walls.

“Breakfast?” Obi-Wan asks suspiciously, because they rarely ate in their quarters.

His master smiles mischievously, and Obi-Wan eyes him in suspicion. He adores his master, really, admires and respects him, but his master also has a habit of making Obi-Wan’s life…difficult.

Usually with a smile on his face.

“I haven’t done my poetry reading.” Obi-Wan mutters, turning to go fetch his datapads.

“I’ll forgive you the assignment for this morning, Obi-Wan.” His master stops him. “But how is your history project going?” He inquires.

“Um…slowly?” Obi-Wan winces a little. His master didn’t give him a deadline, but it was taking awhile, and Obi-Wan wanted to do his absolute best on the assignment. If the Council of First Knowledge didn’t think it was up to par, he’d have to be re-enrolled in a formal history class next cycle.

His master had started by sitting Obi-Wan down and discussing what he already knew about Jedi history, and told him his general knowledge was as good as it needed to be. “As most initiates is by the time they leave the crèche.” He’d also muttered. Obi-Wan’s assignment, therefor, focused less on events and more on the actual Jedi themselves. Master Ben had assigned his padawan to compile a study of all the Jedi Temples.

“All of them?” He’d questioned hesitantly, seeing years of digging through archives ahead of him.

“Let’s say any active Temple since the last war against the Sith.” His master had obliged, relieving Obi-Wan greatly. “I want you to give me a brief bio of what made each Temple unique, when they were founded, when they were abandoned, and how many Jedi they housed and produced.” His master asked of him. Obi-Wan was finding it to be a straightforward, but _incredibly_ tedious assignment.

“Slowly?” His master repeats, lifting a brow.

“There’s a lot of information on the Temples, master, it’s just…” Obi-Wan waves his hands a bit, trying to explain how frustratingly difficult it was to find what he needed. The archives didn’t lack for sheer volume of information, but filtering the Temples by data was all but impossible. There was no standard format on the records of the Temples, which dated back thousands, _tens of_ thousands of years. “Not well organized – I mean, not for this assignment, at least. Madame Nu’s records are always very well kept!”

Obi-Wan is saved by the arrival of Shmi, returning to their quarters with Master Ti in tow, distracting his master from interrogating him further.

“Good morning, Shaak.” Master Ben smiled, and received a reserved head tilt from a very amused togruta. Obi-Wan was still getting used to seeing Master Ti in her Shili Huntress regalia, instead of Jedi robes, but he quietly agreed with his master that the yellow-and-white tunics and red-brown leggings suited Shmi much better than her drab grey dresses.

“Where’s Anakin?” Obi-Wan inquired.

“Still asleep, I should think.” Shmi sends a questioning look Master Ben’s way, and Ben nods, handing a tea tray to Shaak to carry, and one laden in serving dishes to Obi-Wan, who turns and walks it to their low round table.

“Can I ask what we’re up to now?” Obi-Wan waits until they’re all seated, serving themselves breakfast rice and fresh fruit slices. Obi-Wan sets a few aside on his plate for Anakin once he wakes up. There is even a small tureen of roasted insects for Shmi, which Master Ti partakes of as well. Obi-Wan has tried some, but he’s not fond of that particular culinary experience.

“We’re moving quarters.” Shmi answers him, shooting a somewhat exasperated look at the two Jedi masters on either side of her. “They think it will be amusing to do so in secret, and watch how long it takes the Council to figure it out.”

“It _will_ be amusing.” Ben replies, pointing at Shmi with his chopsticks.

“And it will be making a point.” Shaak Ti adds with a gleam in her eyes, the _akul_ fangs on her torc necklace rattling when she moves. “I will not sit idle and wait for permission to do what I know is right. None of us will, as none of us should.” She adds, and Obi-Wan stills under the cool focus she pins him with for a moment before moving on.

“Okay.” Obi-Wan nods. He’s knows what the tenets of the Jedi code have to say about age restrictions, but it simply makes _sense_ to him that Shmi should be a Jedi. Not only for her sake, but for what _she_ can teach _them_. Obi-Wan has learned a lot from her, and even his master will seek Shmi’s advice, or perspective, and they are all wiser for it.

That thought in mind, Obi-Wan chews through his rice, a problem surfacing in his thoughts. He glances between Shaak Ti and Mater Ben. “Um… Masters?” He asks quietly, earning their attention and feeling yet again the sheer presence both of them carry in their eyes. Force, together they were worse than Master Windu!

“Yes, padawan?” Master Ben prompts him.

“Um…are there…are there any other masters looking for a new padawan? I just – well, there’s Siri and Sian and Tsui and they’re all nearly thirteen but they’re…they’d be such _good_ Jedi. But they tell Siri she’s too rough and no one even looks at Sian and Tsui’s so…considerate, but he’s shy, and…” Obi-Wan trails off helplessly, trying to push back the sheer well of frustration he feels, because they _deserve_ to be Jedi, they deserve the same chance Obi-Wan got, and he doesn’t think they’ll get it and it’s _wrong_.

“A perfect example of the problem, Obi-Wan.” His master offers him a half-smile hiding so much emotion and implication that Obi-Wan swallows tightly, feeling like there is something in that statement that is a warning. “I think there are a few Jedi we could… _encourage_ towards their next padawans.”

“It is not a decision that should be forced.” Shmi warns softly. “For the sake of the student, at the very least.”

“Oh, I know.” Ben tips his head in acknowledgement.

“But sometimes a little pressure does not go amiss.” Shaak Ti says primly, her smile flashing a hint of her sharper teeth.


	2. Chapter 2

“Subtle, you think you are?” Yoda grumbles irritably, eyes closed as he meditated – or attempted to – beneath one of his favorite trees, on a grassy knoll near the swamp gardens.

“What need have I for subtlety, Master Yoda?” Ben laughs softly, striding up the hill to lower himself before the elderly master.

“Troublesome, you are.” Yoda mutters. “Less obviously troublesome, I would appreciate you to be.”

“That would invalidate the point, Master Yoda.” Ben sighs. “As it is, my subtlety escapes most of this Temple.”

“Challenge them, you do.” Yoda agrees. “Grasp why, they do not. Leading them by the whiskers, you are, and see it, too few can. Ask me to challenge you, many do. Win, do you think I could?” He actually sounds curious, eyes cracking open, ears lifting.

“Oh, Master Yoda, don’t play old age. You know you could win the moment you wanted to.” Ben shakes his head, amused.

“Know that, do I?” Yoda asks, a shadow in his voice, ears drooping, and Ben draws back, realizing he has miscalculated. Of everyone, Yoda is the least changed in the past or future, and Ben has forgotten that there are still some things Yoda does not know, that Yoda has not done. He is already forty years beyond his species typical life-span, and refused to take another padawan after Yan Dooku because he feared dying before their training was complete.

He has been waiting decades now to pass peacefully in his sleep, and does not know that he has decades yet to go. Does not know any more the strength still left in him.

Did not, at least, until Ben just told him what his future looked like.

“I’m sorry.” Ben whispers, stricken with his own carelessness.

“Hmph.” Yoda cracks his eyes open wider, giving Ben a short look that usually proceeded a whack with his gimmer stick. Thankfully, said object was lying in the grass, and not in the elder’s hands. “Come to me, Qui-Gon Jinn has. Many questions, he had. Troubling questions, long he has avoided. Answers I gave him, but clarity…hmm.” Yoda shakes his head. “Instruct him to take a new padawan, you have. Ask many after their padawans, you have, and frown at them when none they have, you do. To teaching, not all are suited. Learn, not all can.”

Ben sighs at that comment, returning Yoda’s short frown with a scowl of his own. “You could take another. Since I have already spoiled the surprise, I should tell you outright that you have enough time left yet to train another padawan. Or two.”

“A padawan in particular, you have in mind?” Yoda inquires curiously, contemplative.

“For you, no.” Ben shakes his head. “Though if I can _find_ our illustrious Master Jinn, I have one for him. And perhaps Knight Gallia, should I get a word out before she stalks away from my presence.”

“A student _I_ had chosen for Master Jinn. Usurped him, you did.” Yoda grumbles. “Cheated, you have.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “You and Mac- Master Windu both.” Ben mutters, correcting himself. He has to correct himself. To remind himself that his friends are lost in a future changed, and that he is a stranger now to them, no matter how deeply he cares. “It’s not cheating. And…” Ben shakes his head. “I loved my master, but the grief we caused each other never healed. Do you know what it’s like to look him in the face and just want to have a real screaming row, except he looks back at me and he has no idea who I am?”

“Lonely, you are.” Yoda says quietly, looking at him with somber green eyes.

“Sometimes they feel more unreachable standing right in front of me than they ever were as ghosts.” Ben whispers, staring back at Yoda. “But if that is my punishment for the reward of their lives, of this second chance, I can live with it. I have lived with worse.” He wipes a hand over his face, brushing away the beginnings of tears.

“Know them better than they do, you do.” Yoda says sagely. “Unsettle them, that does. Unsettling you are. Greatly unsettling. Much darkness, you carry with you. Our failures, you carry, and judge us for them, you do.”

Ben frowns, pensive. “Don’t you?” He asks the elder. “You have watched generations of us come and go. Do you not ever rage at how many mistakes we repeat?”

“There is no passion, there is serenity.” Yoda intones sternly.

“Bantha shit.” Ben scoffs. “You can no more have serenity without passion than you can have light without dark. Serenity is not the absence of passion; it is its mastery. Believe me, Master Yoda; passion, emotion, ignorance, chaos, attachment, death, I have tried to carve those things out of myself and all that I had left when they were gone was absence. I was not made whole, I was not a better Jedi, I was _no one_ , and I was without hope.”

Ben hadn’t realized then how very fine a line he walked, not towards Falling, but towards something far worse. He had been dangerously unmoored in spirit, and in the Force. He remembers long nights walking the desert, only half of himself touching the living world, hallucinating ghosts and treading against real madness. He had made a rare few trips off-world, to help Bail establish and train his rebel cells, to help Breha learn how to coach Leia into hiding what she was as she grew, and sometimes he’d sit in that ship, drifting in the black, and he’d wonder what would happen if he didn’t go back. If he just kept drifting, off into the nothingness, if it would consume him, come into him, if it would take away his pain and let him dissolve into oblivion.

He’d come out of trances like that half dead, the Force screaming at him, to find that he _had_ drifted, sometimes for days, not eating, not drinking, not moving.

When he’d come back and Beru had screamed and raged at him, cried for him, he’d been on the brink of collapse, his mind had been failing, and her passion had been a blazing sun against the pervasive cold that had made him numb.

Death wasn’t a choice, not really. Death claimed everything. But living, living was, and Beru had forced him to make it. Forced him to take hold of his own life and _choose_.

But life, like darkness, had to be chosen every day, again and again, and he had wavered along the path, stumbled, wandered. He’d fallen headfirst into depression once he actually let himself feel, had staggered into alcoholism, unable to sleep without a drink or three, lost his voice more than once, from lack of use, from over-use. (It had hardly been the first time he’d screamed into the sandstorm, or into the nothing of the empty wastes.)

But he kept choosing to live. Kept letting Beru bring him into her kitchen, offer him tea, and tell him stories. He re-learned how to smile for Luke, and how to remember without breaking down completely. Owen had gotten angry when Ben had told Luke of Anakin – Anakin as Ben remembered him, and not as what he’d left him as. He’d gotten furious when Ben told him of the Force, and when Ben tried to teach-

There had been a look in Beru’s eyes that last time, when Owen had all but bodily thrown Ben from the house, swearing that Luke would never be a Jedi, that Ben was just a mad wizard who ought to let it all die. Owen had forbid him from coming back, and Beru-

She’d looked at him, standing in the sand at sunset, like the day he’d first arrived, and her gaze had sworn that she would see him again –

But she hadn’t.

For the first time, Ben wonders if his future-past still exists. Wonders if she is still there, hoping he hasn’t gone off to let himself die. Wonders if she has gone to his hovel and found it empty and full of dust. Wonders if she has cried for him once more.

_Thwack_!

“Son of a karking-“ Ben swears, hands jerking up to cover the new bruise on his skull, and shoots a watery glare at Yoda, who is unrepentant.

“Spreading misery all around my tree, you were.” Yoda grumps. “Wallowing, bad for the health, it is. Bad for my tree, it is. Sad, you are.” Yoda frowns, lowering his gimmer stick. “Sad, you have made me. And _insolent_! Flaunt the Code so loudly, you should not! It’s guidance, many need.”

“It is a flawed guide, Master Yoda.” Ben replies irritably.

“A better one, have you?” Yoda grumbles.

“The old code wasn’t so bad.” Ben grumbles back. “Passion, _yet_ serenity.”

“A stronger duality, the old code.” Yoda says peevishly. “Cling to both, many tried, and _failed_.”

“It is not the fault of the student if that master cannot teach them to reach serenity _through_ passion.” Ben retorts.

“Teach what one never learned, difficult, that is.” Yoda sighs. “Wise, you are. Such wisdom, few ever attained. Attain it without great suffering, _none_ have. Claim otherwise, would you?” He challenges.

“No.” Ben sighs. Even the Mandalore teachings, which kept order in war, recognized that one did not learn without being tried. “But they can learn nothing if they do not try. We do them no favors by denying that such strength to do as we ask them to do does exist. They cannot master any emotion if they do not first understand it, and understanding it means feeling it, means accepting that it _is_.”

Yoda gives him a narrow look. “Perhaps.”

“Master Yoda, I believed it once. Do you understand that?” Ben asks angrily. “I truly believed that someone could live without emotion, and that I simply _failed_ to do so. I spent half my life trying to bury myself to accomplish the impossible, and do you know what? They called me a _perfect_ Jedi. I pretended and I lied and they said I was the example all should look up to, and my padawan…He _hated_ me for it, in the end. I was too busy trying to be what the Order demanded I be to do what I should have done for him, and because of that…because of that…” Ben chokes on the words, on the pain, and grinds down on his teeth, forcing air in and out through his nose. “I failed him. I failed everyone.”

An acrid scent reaches his nose, and Ben flinches to realize the grass just around his body was withering and burning. _I can’t do this._ He reminds himself, dragging the chaos of his emotions back into the delicate harmony that existed within his soul, re-centering himself into the eye of the storm. There is no endless field here on which he can release that storm. Here, that would result in egregious property damage that no one could afford.

“Losing, we were?” Yoda asks very quietly. “This war with the Sith?”

“ _Losing_.” Ben huffs raggedly. “Master Yoda, no.” Ben shakes his head, his hands trembling. “I did not come back by some miracle because we were losing. We _lost_. We lost, and we died. By the time I came back there were….perhaps _nine_ Jedi Master left in the Galaxy? Three times that many knights, and a scattering of padawans and if they were very very lucky, they rid themselves of everything that made them Jedi and disappeared so well that the Sith will never find them. I exiled myself on Tatooine; the last I knew of you, you were heading into exile in the Dagobah System, and everyone else was running as far and as fast as they could.” It spills out of him, and he knows he should stop, that this was not Yoda’s burden to bear, but he couldn’t. It burned in his mind, he woke every day with it scratching at the corners of his thoughts, and it wanted _out_. He wanted to scream it to every single one of them so that they would see, so that they would learn, so that they could _fight_.

But he remembers how even a far vaguer fear crept through the Temple after Qui-Gon’s death, warping the path all of them walked, weakening their certainty, growing into a dread that clouded their senses and whispered to them in the dark until it was always there, in the back of their minds, waiting to betray them.

“I’m sorry.” Ben gasps. “I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Told me, you have.” Yoda murmurs, truly stricken, and Ben cringes away from that look in his ancient eyes. “Should or should not have, an argument we need have not.” He pauses, curling in on himself slightly, gaze faraway, seeking the refuge of the Force, seeking guidance.

Ben waits, but Yoda is not more forthcoming, and the master is eventually forced to leave him to his meditation.

“I’m sorry.” Ben repeats quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

Obi-Wan is slightly discomfited by the transition to his own room, as admittedly fun as it had been to try and shuffle Shmi’s mattress through the corridors at the early hours of dawn. His meager possessions took up far too little space in a room designed for a slightly larger species, and it was different, to have only his own presence echoing back at him from the walls.

His master had graciously offered Obi-Wan the monochromatic comforter, and Obi-Wan was holding it now, hovering on the threshold, just shy of actually leaving his room. The day had started so well, but when his master had returned in the evening he’d been…

Obi-Wan catches glimpses of deeper emotions from his master sometimes, usually just after they’ve woken from nightmares, and once after his master’s challenge bout with Master Jinn, and this was a thousand times worse. His master moved slowly and seemed preoccupied, but he _felt_ like he was sickened by grief, like he was wounded, and Obi-Wan shuddered, hiding away from that feeling, because if it was a wound, it felt like a poisonous one. It wasn’t _safe_ , and it was consuming his master.

Obi-Wan takes a breath and slips out into the living area, where Master Ben is still sitting on the sofa, staring at the opposite wall and cradling a tea that had long gone stone cold. He hardly even seems to notice his padawan until Obi-Wan has slipped the comforter around his shoulders and pulled the cup from his hands, padding to the kitchen and returning with a fresh one, hot from the kettle.

“I’m not being a very good master, am I?” Ben asks tiredly.

Obi-Wan looks his master in the eyes and shrugs. “You have your moments.” He says.

As he’d hoped, that startles a laugh out of the older man, and a bit of light returns to his eyes. “Do I indeed?” His lips turn a little towards a smile, and Obi-Wan flops down next to his master and hugs him.

“You do.” Obi-Wan says. “I promise.”

His master seems unusually startled by the hug, and then melts into it. “Well,” He says softly, turning to lean into his padawan, his beard tickling Obi-Wan’s scalp. “I suppose there is that, then.”

~*~

Shaak Ti grits her teeth, and reminds herself that she is meant to be meditating. Meditation is meant to be relaxing.

And perhaps it might be, if it were not _all_ she were allowed to do.

They would not assign her missions, they would not let her teach classes, she did not have work for the Reconciliation Council to do, and the uselessness she felt was beginning to wear on her nerves. Still being under medical restrictions to not delve any deeper into the Force than meditation was also straining her calm. She did not have the worst case of Force shock among all the master’s who held the ground on Rilor 4, but the aftereffects still lingered, affecting her control of her use of the Force. She could probably levitate every statue in the Room of a Thousand Fountains at once right now, but summoning her lightsaber to her hand was beyond her, and would probably result in some form of fire.

It was euphorically powerful, and yet uneasily disgruntling. Shaak Ti found the latter capability far more useful than the former.

Yet as ever, when it was at its worst, her chosen padawan appeared, and the reminder of why she had chosen to walk a path regardless of its difficulties was a balm to her soul.

“Shmi.” Shaak smiles warmly, rising from the curtained alcove in their living area and holding out her hands to Shmi, who never hesitated to take them. Shmi was less reserved to touch than most, and Shaak had found herself picking up her padawans, her _friends_ , habits. “Something troubling you?” She asks. There is nothing ever obvious about Shmi’s feelings, but the bond between them had been so easy to form, and Shmi let her peak past her shields freely.

Shmi tilts her head, considering her own state of being. “I…have just been speaking with Dragon Clan. They were telling me about little creatures that live within our bodies and connect us to the Force.”

Shaak feels her eyes fall shut of their own accord and an irritated trill escapes her. “Midichlorians are _not_ creatures and no, you are not infested with them. _Rumor_ has it that Yoda made that story up as a padawan serving crèche duty and his line has perpetuated it ever since, telling younglings they were taken in so as to contain the ‘infestation’. The crèche masters are never amused by it.”

Shmi glances briefly away and then back towards Shaak Ti, who has learned to recognize the gesture as Shmi taking a heartbeat to overcome a lifetime of strict obedience and cowering in the face of the mildest upset. “Are they not real, then? I had thought the Healers mentioned them when Anakin and I arrived, suggesting he be tested, though I declined.”

“Oh, they do exist.” Shaal Ti explains. “Midichlorians are sort of….particles.” She says, knowing Shmi had a superb grasp of physics. “The Force itself cannot be quantified nor qualified, but midichlorians, a byproduct of the Force, _can_ be, as they are produced whenever the Force interacts with physical matter, be it a person, plant, or object.”

Shmi nods, following along with sharp attention.

 “ _Why_ , we don’t know.” Shaak adds.  “We just know that it happens. Therefor, those things or persons who interact heavily with the Force as a result have a high midichlorian count, and those who have interacted little with it have a lower midichlorian count.”

Shmi frowns slightly and Shaak Ti pauses, waiting for her to voice what has perturbed her.

“And the midichlorian count, this is how the Jedi determine which children they will take into the Temple?” She inquires quizzitively.

“It is.” Shaak Ti nods.

“So you only take in those who have interacted heavily with the Force from a young age?” Shmi clarifies. “If midichlorians build as one interacts with the Force, can it then not rise later in life as one grasps the ability? Could an adult who found their connection to the Force after childhood not still gain the strength of a knight?”

Shaak Ti does not wince, but she is solemn. “Yes.” She says. Shi’s small frown becomes pronounced.

“Why?”

Shaak Ti sighs. “I suppose for the certainty that the student can learn, but in truth I do not know why that decision was made, and why that is what we deem the only right way.” She confesses. “That decision was made long ago.”

“If I have Anakins strength now, I did not have it as a child.” Shmi says. “I have been amongst your younglings, and I have known children of the outer rim all my life. By any comparison, the only younglings you take in are prodigies and geniuses, or born into a people who are by nature possessed of the Force.”

Shaak Ti studies Shmi’s face. “You think it’s wrong.” She realizes.

“I think it denies us much.” Shmi says. “The Jedi and those who _could_ be Jedi.”

~*~

Adi Gallia did not earn her appointment to be the Temple’s ambassador to the Senate by chance. In spite of her youth, she has an experienced grasp of the nuances of intent, her own intuition honed to trace rumor to origin and truth from lie and lie from omission. She can parse the energy of a room or a crowd, part instigator from follower, and above all, she can do all of this without ever giving herself away.

In other words, she knows when a _plot_ is afoot, and she is not fooled.

The illustrious Master Jinn was renowned for a practice of springing the trap he found himself walking into.

Adi found that…inelegant.

_Why let the jaws snap shut_ , She muses, _when you can simply snatch the treat_?

Adi had been very, very good at trick puzzles as a youngling.

“Can I help you, Knight Gallia?” Master Unsaan, a mathematician and instructor, inquires softly, pausing the lecture they were holding for a mixed group of Initiates and Padawans. The younglings in question tried valiantly to pretend they were not rabidly curious as to her presence.

“My apologies for my timing, Master Unsaan.” Adi bows politely. “I have need of Initiate Tachi, if you can spare her.”

The bith Jedi makes a thoughtful sound, and nods, though the girl in question has frozen stiffly in her seat, radiating apprehension.

“Initiate Tachi?” Master Unsaan prompts, and the girl jerks before rising and lifting her chin, refusing to waver in front of her agemates as she stepped after Knight Gallia.

Adi has been keeping on eye on this girl. Initiate Siri Tachi is remarked upon to be head-strong, proud, and rough-mannered. She is opinionated, loudly so, wild-tempered, and sharply intelligent. There is a note in her file that remarks specifically that Siri Tachi can be _unkind_.

She’s slated for a position in the Explorer Corps, though she has half a year yet before she ages out. Like most her age, she is frightened that the slightest incident will have her dismissed early from the Temple.

There have been one or two incidents.

Adi leads her from the classroom, and the girl is straight-backed, chin-lifted, gaze straight ahead. Not defiant, but simply not meek either.

Adi smiles.

_She’s perfect._


	4. Chapter 4

Obi-Wan feels the tight and instant sear of a saber-touch and yelps, dropping the blade and wincing when the gold-and-white hilt of his master’s borrowed saber clatters on the ground.

“Sorry, Master!” Obi-Wan says quickly, ducking down to scoop it back up. His master just shakes his head and steps forward, reaching for Obi-Wan’s arm and turning it so the boy can see the red mark he just scored on his own skin.

_I’m glad I’m in sleeveless tunics._ He thinks, remembering the last time he melted a patch of synth-cloth into his skin. The sears hurt, but they were clean and healed easily. The melted synthcloth, on the other hand, had to be scrubbed out of the burns.

If it were a training saber, the sears wouldn’t be quite so harsh, but his master’s blade – and his own – where multi-crystal and high-powered. They didn’t have as low a setting as a training saber, and Obi-Wan had borrowed some of his master’s insanity and insisted that if he were supposed to learn quick, he’d learn better by using a real blade.

His master had seemed pleased by his padawan’s self-assessment, and easily complied, lending his own saber, which had given Obi-Wan goosebumps. Obi-Wan’s own blade gave him a brief rush of revitalization, like stepping outside into clean, cool air in the morning. His masters blade didn’t feel like that. When Obi-Wan held his master’s lightsaber, he could feel a hum in his bones, and the power trapped inside like caged lightning, just waiting to be released. Balancing the two was quite a trick.

“I don’t think I’m quite cut out for reverse grip jar’kai, master.” Obi-Wan huffs, twitching only a little when his master smears salve over the sear.

“Perhaps, but we should study it nonetheless.” Master Ben replies. “Jar’kai, the art of wielding two blades, enhances your reach and your force. A reverse grip enhances your maneuverability, defense, and provides a tricky challenge to those used to fighting a more traditional opponent. Combined…” He trails off, letting Obi-Wan put the pieces together for himself.

“I understand, Master.” Obi-Wan says. “I just don’t think I’m well suited to it.”

His master humms in response, and Obi-Wan discreetly rolls his eyes, though inside he feels a prickle of shame that his skills are not enough. His master has him study many different forms and styles, and they practice and practice until Obi-Wan can hardly stand, and still, and _still_ , there is so much more to learn, and his master…

He never belittles him. Never criticizes in any manner not meant to guide him into correction, but Obi-Wan cannot escape the thought that his master is disappointed in his skills, and that that is why he has not chosen a specialty for Obi-Wan to focus his mastery on, that that is why he is always trying to teach him a different way, a different style.

Obi-Wan is still practicing Shii-Cho, for sith’s sake. He practices it bare-handed. He practices it with his blade, with a reverse grip, with two blades, with a two-bladed reverse grip, with a staff…Shii-Cho, Makashi, Soresu, Ataru, the beginnings of Djem So, and even Vapaad, though his master and Master Windu only ever walk him through the forms, and not the practice in the Force.

And their study of the Force…There, Obi-Wan feels failure keenly. He can enhance his senses, enhance the capabilities of his body, he’s learning how to layer his shields, now that they are properly anchored within his mind, building on skills learned in the crèche, but he fails phenomenally in such simple ways. He could break shackles through blunt use of the Force, but was defeated when his master placed a simple bowl of sand in front of him and asked him to lift and separate all the grains.

Obi-Wan could lift the bowl, or the pile, could swirl it through the air as a mass, but his master did not want him to do that.

“One by one, padawan.” His master had asked. “Wrap yourself around each grain distinctly, until you know every individual facet of every single piece, and can move and direct them independently.”

Obi-Wan could lift a grain of sand, five, a dozen, but hundreds? Thousands? His focus fell apart, and his grasp, his control, dissolved right along with it. It was stupid. _He_ was stupid. It was just _sand_.

Obi-Wan tells himself to focus on the here and now and moves to reignite his sabers, only for his master to hold up a hand, stalling him. Obi-Wan looks up curiously and then tracks his gaze to the entrance of the salle as it chimes and opens.

“Good afternoon.” Master Ben greets, and Obi-Wan pinches his lips, frowning.

Bant, Siri, Sian, Tsui, _and_ Quinlan were all hovering on the threshold, Siri jerking an elbow into Quinlan’s side, Quinlan shoving her back, Sian shoving them both apart and Bant sighing deeply.

“Master Ben, may we watch you and Obi-Wan train, please?” The pink mon calamari padawan asks, shooting Obi-Wan an apologetic look.

“No.” Master Ben replies, earning the same affronted look from all the teen and tweenlings, except Obi-Wan, whose ears turned red in embarrassment.

His master rather didn’t like anyone watching Obi-Wan train, and that was…humiliating. Master Ben never said anything, of course, but if Obi-Wan were better, surely his master would have him sparring with other padawans?

“You may, however, join in on the lesson.” Master Ben adds, and all of Obi-Wan’s friends gape.

“Oh, kriff yeah!” Quinlan pushes forward, Sian Jeisel right beside him, an eager look on her face.

“What lesson, Master Naasade?” Tsui Choi asks, dwarfed by his taller companions, but unafflicted by it.

Master Naasade smiles slowly. It’s not a wide smile, or an obvious one, but it’s victorious in its own right, as if by taking a single step, they have already lost against him. “How to defend yourself from what is behind you. Partner up.”

The padawans and initiates hesitate, with the exception of Bant, who darts right over to Obi-Wan, claiming him. Siri partners with Sian, eyeing the taller girl with some curiosity, and Tsui partners with Quinlan, who looks perplexed by his tiny counterpart.

“Now I want you to all face your partners, a blades swing apart.” Master Ben instructs, and they shuffle, bumping off of each other, to comply. “In both directions, Quinaln, Siri.” He adds, and they scoot farther away from each other so as not to accidentally catch the other in the side.

Obi-Wan sees his master fetch the blaster droids, and wipes the sweat off his brow from an already intensive afternoon with a sigh of resignation.

His master releases _eight_ of them.

“This is also a cooperative exercise. You are to keep your eyes on your partner. You can see what is behind them, but they cannot, and they must defend themselves. How can you still help?” He asks.

“Call out to them?” Siri blurts.

“You could.” Master Ben nods. “What else?”

“Watch your partner’s body language.” Quinlan says.

“Good, but then you’ve been in the field, Padawan Vos.” Master Ben nods.

“Trust in the Force.” Tsui adds.

“Always.” Master Ben smiles, activating the droids. “Now, keep in mind – you are _all_ doing all of this at the same time.”

“Wait – _what_?”

The floating droids start firing, and lightsabers are hurriedly ignited.

Not quick enough – someone _yelps_.


	5. Chapter 5

“Padawan, what _happened_ to you?” Tahl stands over the pink-skinned mon calamari girl, who was struggling to apply a slave to a liberal spray of sting-marks across her arms, her back, her legs.

“Master Naasade invited us to join in Obi-Wan’s training session?” Bant replies, blinking widely up at her master, who was not fooled by the innocent look in the least. Bant was caring, and gentle, but never, ever was she _that_ naïve.

“Training session.” Tahl repeats flatly. “Against what? An _army_? Padawan, look at you!” She steps forward and takes the tube of salve, assisting her padawan with the harder to reach spots.

“It was a difficult lesson.” Bant says, jerking ticklishly when Tahl applies salve to a sting very near her gills. “But it was….”She trails off, hesitating, and Tahl is baffled at the slight sense of guilt she can feel from the girl.

“Bant?” Tahl inquires softly, letting her shields relax so that her own calm might pervade her empathic padawan, and so that Bant could feel the care and trust Tahl felt for her.

“It was _nothing_ like how we train, master.” Bant says in a rush. “There were so many elements, and in the moment it was rather overwhelming but….but the more I think about it, the more I study what we did and what we could have done and what I might be able to make work – Master, I’ll be learning from that lesson for weeks!”

Tahl pauses, surprised. “You…. _liked_ learning from Master Naasade?”

Her padawan had been distraught, when such dramatic change came over Obi-Wan following his acceptance as a Padawan Learner. He’d almost completely disappeared from his friends lives, and when they did see him, he was exhausted and wincing. Bant had had nothing good to say about his master, often cursing the way he treated her friend. From her usually gentle padawan, it had raised quite a few alarms for Tahl.

“Well, he’s not you.” Bant says emphatically. “But…it was a _good_ training session. I think it will help me a lot. If Obi-Wan’s training sessions are always like that…It’s intense, but I can see why he doesn’t regret his master.”

Tahl studies her padawans face, Bant nervously fidgeting. “Master?”

“There is much about Master Naasade that troubles me, Bant.” Tahl informs the girl, admiring her maturity and humility with pride. “But perhaps that is merely because there is much I have to learn of him, and much I may never learn about our mysterious former Shadow.”

“Oh.” Bant says softly.

“Let this be a lesson, padawan mine. Even the most observant of us can make hasty judgements.” Tahl says, lifting one finger to tap off the dome of her padawan’s head. Bant goes cross-eyed, and then blinks irritably. But she also smiles.

“I’ll remember that, Master Tahl.”

~*~

Master Lohlarryyyl is a Wookiee in the third decade of her second century. She has been a Jedi master for half that span, and a crèche master for one hundred and six years. She has raised seven clans from infancy to adolescence, and not once has she ever questioned her capability as a teacher, a guide, even as a foster-parent, though there were Jedi who scowled to claim their roles as such.

Not once, until now.

“Master Lohlarryyyl?” Master B’una, an aging Duros with green skin, and the Master of the Creche, prompts her, as she stands before the complete Initiates Council.

“My apologies, masters.” Lohlarryyyl rumbles softly. “I am…I am at a loss.” She states simply.

“As are we.” The duros lifts a wry brow, his red eyes clightly clouded with his age, but his wits ever-sharp. “We shall find our way together.” He says kindly, and she trills appreciatively and gathers her thoughts, so that she may present them clearly.

“Masters, as you know, I am responsible at present for Hawkbat Clan.” She begins. “Three months ago, of my eight Initiates I had two with the potential to become knights, two who were healer or medicorps bound, one for the educorps, and three as of yet undecided paths. They are not even yet quite old enough to even be eligible for apprenticeship, let alone to send off to the corps.” She adds. “But one learns to see the path that stretches before them.”

Several of the councilors nod, undersanding her meaning. They watched so many children walk so many similar paths, after all. You learned how to tell earlier and earlier which direction they were heading. Some would always surprise you, however, most…most fit a certain mold, and were guided to where their talents and personality would be best suited.

“All of them show no doubts as to their futures, and accepted these roles.” She says, and it was an accomplishment to know she could raise them and not disappoint them by building up hopes of a life that would not suit them, by showing them the way that would serve them best, by raising them to find joy in their work.

“Today I stand before you and I can only say…” Lohlarryyyl snorts softly through her nose, laughing at her own folly, and struggling with deep inner turmoil. “That I now have one future crèche master, and seven potential Shadows.”

The Council is not stunned, by the pronouncement, not shocked; they are quiet, contemplative, and then surprise and alarm build in the room until the Force buzzes with it.

They felt hardly a fraction of what Lohlarryyyl herself did, when she had realized what had become of her clan which she thought she knew and placed so well.

“This is unprecedented, Master Lohlaryyyl.”

“This is…what?”

“How?” Master B’una inquires, deep lines drawn around his brows and eyes, already cragged with age.

“Part of it…part of it, Masters, is what Lady Shmi has taught them,” Lohlarryyyl says. It had seemed remarkable, when all her younglings had come one day from the gardens with a neat new trick, and it became less and less remarkable to see them flocking to the sharp-eyed woman who had so much to teach them in such different ways than the Temple knew. “and part of it is what Lady Shmi _says_ to them. She taught them to hide and she told them stories and they, more than most others, have taken so much of it into themselves. Masters, my initiates accept that this may never be, that they may never be chosen, but councilers…I can not!” Her voice is a soft roar, and barely that by the standards of her species.

“There is so much potential in them, and I never saw it, I could not bring it forth, but knowing it now – how can we give them up? What do I do, when I know they could be so much more?” Lohlarryyyl asks, almost pleads.

She had questioned herself, and when she had found no answers, she had braved to ask the young mother in question, ask her how she had seen what Lohlarryyyl of all her many years could not. Shmi had smiled, and said “it is easier to find hidden things if you too are hiding.”

Lohlarryyyl had never felt more ignorant in her life, than when she looked into the eyes of a woman barely a sliver of her own age, and failed to understand the wisdom that waited there.

“What do we do?” Lohlarryyyl asks again.

~*~

“Five?” Obi-Wan protested.

“You have to admire their tenacity.” Ben replies easily, amused at his padawans indignation. “This was clearly an effort of some collaboration and cunning. They are the first, after all, who truly understood what was _not_ writ in the Challenge rules.”

“Why wasn’t it written?” Obi-Wan asks sharply, frowning up at his master.

“Precisely because I _wanted_ to see who could put forth a little ingenuity, padawan mine.” Ben smiles, reaching out and tugging on Obi-Wan’ padawan braid.

“But I’m the one who gets stuck with whomever defeats you, master!”

“Ah, I see.” Ben gives Obi-Wan a loftly look. “You think they’ll beat me.”

“Master, there are five of them!”

“Five, yes, so you’ve pointed out.” Ben drawls, and Obi-Wan flushes a little. “And each a specialist of a different fighting style. They’ve even practiced working in tandem, which is an effort we’ll have to admire. Fret less, Obi-Wan.” He says, smirking when his padawan glowers at him. “They’re only young knights.”

“Master….”Obi-Wan huffs, frowning uncertainly. “You’re confident?” He asks. “Not…cocky. I know you’re one of the best, Master, I just…” He fidgets, and Ben’s expression softens.

“You aren’t losing me today, padawan, and certainly not to _them_.” He promises. “You don’t think I’d ever let anyone near you who wasn’t worthy, do you?”

Obi-Wan blushes bright red, and shakes his head.

“Well then, I suppose I ought to indulge them?” Ben murmurs, glancing across the arena towards his team of opponents, who look very self-satisfied for not even having stepped into the circle yet. Ah, the folly of young authority. Graduating to knighthood has convinced them that they are ready to face all that comes before them. They still believe that they can accomplish anything simply because they wish to. They are _Jedi_ , after all.

Ben was knighted knowing that this was not true.

They had certainly not dared to underestimate him, at least. They’re team comprised of a variety of species, as well as specialties, hoping that the incongrinuity might thwart him.

“Gentlebeings, shall we?” Ben calls, thinking that perhaps his padawan was right about his attitude today. He sounded rather full of himself.

They nod respectfully and move into the sparring circle, making their first mistake by flanking each other instead of surrounding him, courtesy of a duel of no.

The audience murmurs softly, a thrill of excitement and anticipation in the room, threaded with less pleasant sensations – pride, aggression, jealousy. Those who are hoping Ben will fail here only for the sake of seeing him fail.

How utterly he is going to disappoint them.

They try to disperse as soon as the match starts, but Ben is already moving, closing the gap before they have even cleared each other. The ataru specialist leaps clear, and their soresu fighter sides past him, but the other three are not so lucky. Two come off with minor sears, but the third is felled and forced to leave the ring.

There are too many lightsabers in the circle. Their reaches overlap, and so Ben does what he is not expected to do, and disengages his own.

He is not Jango Fett, who killed six Jedi Knights with his bare hands in a fit of vengeance, but he has enough mandalorian training to best four in a spar without a blade in his hands, particularly when they half defeat themselves. It is simply not the Jedi way to engage a single opponent with so many.

By the time he has relieved them of their blades, his padawan is grinning ear to ear.


	6. Chapter 6

“An enterprising match, Master Naasade.” Healer Ni Hiella congradualtes him, striding over with dry cynicism.

“And one I endured unscathed.” Ben comments, eyeing the healer, who waves a hand in negation.

“As unscathed as you ever are.” She comments, giving him a stern look. Ben would apologize, but it is hardly his fault that the empath is subject to his emotions. He can’t stop being what he is anymore than she can.

Instead, he merely tips his head, conceding the point.

“I’m merely here to let you know that another match was slated for today, rather last minute.” She says, sounding so very reproving.

“Oh?” Ben inquires, a bit snippily. “I can’t spend all my time on these challenges. And haven’t they realized I can’t be exhausted into defeat?”

“They probably have.” Ni Hiella replies. “But given the givens, it should be short.”

“How flattering.” Ben smiles warmly at her.

“Isn’t it just?” She smiles back cheerfully, and Ben only has enough time to tense before she has grabbed hold of him, with her hand and with the Force, and the hypospray is jabbed into his neck. He throws her with a rough push on instinct – he may or may not apologize for that later – and staggers back, trying to purge the drug from his system even as everything seems to….melt, all the colors hyper-bright, and wavering like water.

“Well this is…” He stumbles, and then laughs as the euphoria rushes through him, distracting his concentration, the Force slipping out of his grasp. “New.” He collapses to his knees not entirely of his own doing.

Ni Hiella is a mirage of pink and violet as she walks back towards him. “Call it payback for that spice overdose your padawan was subjected to.” She says, stopping just out of reach.

“You already-“

If Ben finished that sentence, he never remembers doing so.

~*~

Sian watches Obi-Wan climb up the tree to join her with a little amusement and a lot of melancholy. She’s only got four months left in the Temple, and so whenever she can, she is trying to soak in the things about her childhood home that she will miss the most, hoping that if she imprints them deeply enough within herself, they might never truly leave her.

Her perch in this tree above the long creek is one of the places she’ll miss the most, but Obi-Wan, for all she’s only known him for a few months, is one of the people she’ll miss most.

He’s not as quick up the tree as she is, and he takes more care of his hands – humans have softer skin than devaronians, after all. The tree has thorns, which deters most younglings from the climb, but the view is rewarding, and the smell of the blossom buds is soothing.

“Is this your planetarium?” He asks, once he’s cleared the lower branches.

“Hm?”

“When I need…solace, I sometimes go up to the planetarium and sit in the star-chart holograms.” Obi-Wan says. “I haven’t much, lately, but before Master Ben chose me…I spent a lot of time there.”

“Yeah.” Sian replies, feeling a warmth lift her up at the sheer knowledge that here is someone who completely understands. “How are things with Master Ni Hiella?” She asks. Obi-Wan looks a little less exhausted than usual, but far more frazzled.

“The point of this challenge was supposed to be to save me from Master Ben’s tyranny.” Obi-Wan deadpans. “Master Hiella is _worse_. Healers are crazy!”

“That’s the general assumption.” Sian quips, and Obi-Wan cracks a smile.

“Can I borrow you for a few minutes, or do you want to be here for a little while more?” Obi-Wan asks, swinging his feet much as she had been doing.

“Borrow me for what?” Sian inquires, because as much as she liked Master Ben’s training session, the knowledge that it would be both one of her first and her last had hurt in a way that still ached, and she had no interest in being the dummy in a Healer’s lesson.

“Oh, my master and I are setting up an ambush.” Obi-Wan shrugs. “Our prey is being very difficult.”

Sian eyes him suspiciously. “I can’t tell if that means there’s a loth-cat loose in the Temple, or if the Council will be reprimanding us all later.”

“Us?” Obi-Wan’s eyes gleam.

Sian smiles and shoves him with one hand, though he catches himself easily. “Of course _us_. I want to have as many memories as I can.”

“Spectacular!” Obi-Wan grins, and hops forward, letting himself just _drop_ from the tree.

“What does that word even mean?” Sian mutters, daring herself to follow in as effortless a manner. The tree is her tree, but it still has thorns.

Obi-Wan takes her hand when she finally scrambles down, not having had the guts to jump, and they dart out of the gardens under a few reproving stares, nearly crashing into Master Windu as they spring around the corner in the outer corridor.

“Sorry!”  Sian yelps, and Obi-Wan just calls back “Blame my master!”

“I do!” Master Windu snaps after them.

There are all sorts of suites and chambers within the Temple, dotted on various levels and in odd and ends places, meant to provide a refuge no matter where you found yourself at your time of need. They made study rooms, or meeting places, good places to sit and draw, or play an instrument, tea rooms or, on occasion, an excellent setting for sabacc.

Sian has never been to the room Obi-Wan takes her – she’s never even been on this level within the Temple – but it overlooks Coruscant opposite the Senate Dome, which left streams of traffic, the odd shining spire, and the distant spark of generator fields flashing like an unending storm. The walls that are not consumed by the window are painted in abstract, soothing murals, and there is a round table surrounded by low, comfy couches. Inside, Master Naasade and who she thinks is Master Jinn are glaring at each other from across said table, cards in hand, tea steaming between them.

“Unethical.” Jinn grinds out.

“Hardly.” Naasade rolls his eyes, and spies Obi-Wan and Sian. “Ah! There you are.”

“He has bet your apprenticeship in a card game.” Qui-Gon informs Obi-Wan, who blinks several times, brows rising. Sian frowns at his back, because he doesn’t feel surprised, at all.

“My master is an excellent player. I’m sure he’ll emerge victorious.” Obi-Wan says placidly.

“He’s losing.” Qui-Gon retorts.

“Am I?” Master Naasade frowns, and Sian has no idea what is going on. “No, it appears…” He lays his cards on the table, and Master Jinn, who has taken a sip of tea, spits.

“You cheat!” He gapes, rising from his seat and slapping a hand down on the cards revealed.

“Why Master Qui-Gon, there are younglings present.” Master Naasade all but _purrs_. “Such an accusation is serious. Your proof?” He inquires.

“I’m not a youngling!” Sian complains, Obi-Wan’s voice a twin to her own.

Master Naasade sends them an indulgent smile, the same smile he gave them when they so eagerly jumped into his training lesson. “My apologies.” He murmurs, and Obi-Wan turns to Sian so his master can’t see him roll his eyes.

“But I have no padawan!” Qui-Gon protests.

“Then perhaps you should not have been so certain of your victory that you accepted a bet you could not pay up.” Master Naasade says airily, clearly too amused for his own good. “What ever shall I do with that debt of yours, Master Jinn?”

Master Jinn colors, shooting the two of them an uncomfortable look. “I had hoped to alleviate your padawan of his difficult training regimen, as all the rest of the Temple aspires to do. Forgive my altruism.”

“Hard to do, when you just blatantly insulted my capabilities as a Teacher.” Master Naasade deadpans, and Sian finds him eerily similar to Obi-Wan in that moment. Or perhaps the other way around.

“Shall we call it good faith, Master Naasade?” Jinn inquires, having resumed his seat stiffly.

“No.” Naasade says, humor fading into something sharper. “The last time we spoke, I made a request of you which you have failed to heed.”

Master Jinn’s expression turns white, and a shadow seems to enter the room, heavy and oppressive. Sian squeezes Obi-Wan’s hand for comfort, and he leans into her shoulder.

“You made a few spurious claims and expected me to simply-“

“Ten years you have wallowed in this.” Master Naasade retorts. “And there was nothing spurious about the things I had to say to you, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

They resume glaring at each other.

“How do you ever _know_?” Jinn breaks after a few minutes of tense, awkward silence. “I can’t fail again, I could not –“

“Bear it?” Master Naasade finishes for him. “Then don’t fail again. You never _know_ , Master Jinn. That doesn’t excuse us from trying.”

Master Jinn frowns deeply at the other man, and then levels Sian with a heavy, troubled look. She sucks in a breath, holding very still, and then shakes herself for having felt afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. Without knowing why, she squeezes Obi-Wan hand and steps forward, holding herself with the certainty of one who has accepted their path, even if it wasn’t to go where their heart wished to lead them. “Initiate Sian Jeisel, Master Jinn.” She bows lightly. “Do you need help? Is that why I’m here?”

He blinks once, and then a second time, and the look in his eyes softens. “Perhaps you can.” He murmurs. He looks shaken, and Sian takes another step forward with an encouraging look from Master Naasade.

“What can I do?”


	7. Chapter 7

“Chemistry III and Human and Near-Human Anatomy & Physiology II?” Obi-Wan frowns at the datapad in his hands, and then frowns at the pink-skinned Zeltron giving him an unimpressed look. “Master Ni Hiella, I don’t think you can enroll me in these courses. You’re only my master for a couple more weeks.”

“The key point there, sweet Obi-Wan, would be ‘Master’.” The Healer replies. “You had decent grades in your first two courses of Chemistry and you tested into A&P II with good marks. Furthermore, you missed the fact, dear interim padawan, that I can and have already enrolled you.”

Obi-Wan’s frown sharpens into a scowl, realizing that she slipped a placement exam past his nose amidst all her other rigorous knowledge assessments and mentor-assigned homework quizzes. “It’s a lot, Master Hiella. I don’t know if I can keep up.” He admits pitifully.

The Healer softens slightly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Obi-Wan, there is more to a Jedi than their skill with a sword or a spoken word. You have power, padawan, and you can do so much more with it than you know. Healing is just one of those arts. It isn’t a kind one, or an easy one, but you can do so much good with a little more learning. I can train you to be a standard medic, Obi-Wan, and you’ve come along on that front beautifully, but if you take these courses, I can train you to be so much more _effective_ than that.”

Obi-Wan blushes a little, but mostly he just feels nervous, his stomach clenching. “You’re talking about real Force Healing. Master Hiella, I’m not capable of that! I can’t even master my stupid sand excersize!”

She gives him a puzzled look and then shakes her head. “Do you think I am lying to you, Obi-Wan?” She asks.

“Um…no?”

She gives him a dry look, and he winces.

“Trust my instincts, Obi-Wan, if you can’t trust your own.” She tells him. “A Healing Master knows how to recognize those with the focus and power to become Healers themselves. Jedi Healers are few and far between, and we cannot waste years on an apprentice incapable of attuning themselves to the art. I knew Essja had it, just as I know you do. Though…” She pauses thoughtfully, looking him over. “I don’t think you used to. You’ve grown in ways you can hardly imagine, Padawan Kenobi, sand or no sand.”

Obi-Wan blushes more deeply, and nods humbly, bowing to the Healer, who cuffs him over the ear to straighten him back out.

“If you’re so concerned over the added coursework,” She says. “Perhaps you could try getting that history project of yours out of the way.”

“I am working on it, Master Hiella.” Obi-Wan promises.

~*~

What truly marvels Shaak Ti about her chosen padawan, is that Shmi Skywalker is not temped by darkness, not at all, not even once.

When they meditate together, sequestered in the enclosure of curtains within their chambers, palms laid over one another, and let their souls open up to each other, Shaak Ti finds lifetimes of suffering, finds unmitigated cruelty and pain, pressed against the essence that is Shmi Skywaker like watermarks on silk. She finds the passion of a revolutionary, the sorrow of a lost girl, and then a lost woman, the justified rage of a righteous cause, and _hate_.

Shaak Ti knows of hate only as the miasma of darkness. In her experience, hatred is the enemy. It is your destruction and the destruction of all you hold dear.

Shmi – oh, Shaak Ti barely touched the surface and still that hatred lanced across her mind like a storm. Shmi carried it in her heart and in her bones. It warmed her blood and steadied her breath and strengthened her muscles. It whispered to her while she slept, while she ate, while she brushed her sons hair, while she studied, soothing her thoughts and sharpening her instincts.

Shmi Skywalker was shaped by her hatred, and still not once was tempted by darkness. She felt it, certainly, but if darkness was a stream, then Shmi waded through the current and kept on walking until the waters past her by, never even bothered enough to glance down.

It flew in the face of everything Shaak was ever taught.

And yet, even knowing this, even having spent hours upon hours meditating around the concept and quietly clinging to the shaky ground of her former bedrock, Shaak had not had the foresight to realize that wise, gentle, sharp-eyed, hateful Shmi Skywalker was completely capable of violence.

Shaak Ti had put a saber in her hand and not once considered that Shmi had never had a fight in her life where a draw was the desired outcome. Her instincts would not tell her to win – they told her to survive, and to survive, as she had, meant to go for the kill.

“Shmi!” Shaak reprimands sharply, and her padawan startles, Knight Dahvo looking incredibly relieved as she steps back away from him, allowing him to relax from his hasty defense of his throat. Even a training saber is not safe for someone to shove into your larynx. “You are not trying to _kill_ him!”

“Am I not?” Shmi inquires, brow pinched in confusion. “You have given me a weapon.”

“To defend yourself. To defeat him, yes, but it is not the Jedi way to dive straight into slaughter. There is a _reason_ we are not merely equipped with blasters, Shmi.” Shaak Ti explains, feeling foolish for not having done so before. Shmi, for all she lacked any formal education, was incredibly brilliant in some regards, intelligent enough that she could teach any class on mechanics or mathematics, but shockingly ignorant in other regards.

Shaak Ti forgets, too often, that Shmi, who soaked serenity into her skin like a plant its solar rays, was raised in a world where peace was a foreign concept.

“I cannot beat him.” Shmi replies. “I have neither the skill or strength.”

 _Survival instincts_. Shaak Ti reminds herself. _She was raised knowing that her life was not guaranteed to her_.

And Knight Dahvo…Knight Dahvo was Nar’depur. He and Shmi had often spoke at length in private, and as Shaak Ti was guided further along the path, he finally confided in her the name the Amavikka had honored him with. It was a name out of a slave-story from Zygerria, about a Depur who walked under the sun and under the moon for many days and many nights to find Ekkreth. The trickster tested them with monstrous forms and terrible illusions before finally appearing before them to hear why they sought Ekkreth, they who had wronged Ar-Amu, and the Amavikka, and all the many stars in the sky. The story goes that the Depur dropped to his knees and confessed to Ekkreth that they had freed all their slaves and given away all their possessions and wished only to be forgiven for all they had done, for the mother to rinse them clean of their sins, that they might do better in the next life. Ekkreth denied them. _This is the life you were given, and you will do with it whatever you can. It is not yet over. Like Ar-Amu’s sacred children, it is not yours to do with as you please_.

And the Depur wept, but Ekkreth had no pity, not even for the repentant.

 _Then make use of my life_! The Depur cried, when Ekkreth made to leave. _Ekkreth the Trickster! Use me as your disguise! I cannot give you my life for you will not take it, but I can give you my face. My face will be Ekkreth’s face, and with it, Ekkreth may set others free!_

And Ekkreth agreed, and this Depur became Nar’depur. One who binds and unbinds the chains of slavery.

But Nar’depurs face was still Depur’s face, and Knight Dahvo was still a scion of Zygerria, and all its history, and its great empire of slavery. Shmi’s mind would know better. Her heart might as well, but her instincts?

 _She has so much to teach us_ , Shaak Ti muses, _and so much to learn_.

“Not yet, padawan.” Shaak Ti says with certainty. “But you will.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Why are you looking up the Temple? You live here!” Siri Tachi says sharply, and Obi-Wan jerks, slamming his knee into the desk.

“Siri!” He complains, glowering at the girl leaning over his shoulder. She grins unrepentantly at him, a wide and toothy smile.

“Got’cha.” She beams, crystal blue eyes sparkling. “But really, you never have any free time, and you’re wasting it on this?” She gestures to the computer terminal, and Obi-Wan takes a moment to process her accusation, because he’s taking in her new haircut. A traditional Padawan cut was short and spiky and not entirely dignified, and being Adi Gallia’s padawan and therefor extremely visible as a representative of the Order, Siri had opted out. Instead, her hair was now trimmed in fine layers that fell close and neat around her eyes and cheeks, and ended in perfect alignment with her chin, with the exception of her padawan braid, which she kept slightly longer.

It made her look like a calmer, more graceful version of herself, and Obi-Wan grudgingly admitted that she was pretty, for all she seemed to enjoy irking him.

“I have free-time every ten-day.” Obi-Wan retorts, when his thoughts finally catch-up.

It’s Siri’s turn to roll her eyes. “Every _ten-day_.” She mocks. “Obi, most padawans have free time _every_ day. Hence why everyone hates your master?”

“They don’t _hate_ him.” Obi-Wan replies mulishly. “And you forgot half my name. Obi- _Wan_.”

“Bant calls you Obi.” Siri protests.

“She’s called me that since we were in diapers, Siri.” Obi-Wan groans. “I can’t make her stop!”

“You think you can stop me?” She lifts a brow, lips twitching, and then sighs petulantly when Obi-Wan glares at her.

Her argument regarding his leisure time wasn’t inaccurate, per se, but Obi-Wan still felt peevish when his friends pointed it out. Bant understood the most, having been in his crèche clan, but the others just didn’t seem to get that Obi-Wan had tagged behind everyone else for _years_. His only advanced subject was languages, but in all other aspects, his age-mates had far outstripped him, a fact which some never let him forget. He needed more time, had to put in more effort, just to _keep up_.

That his master was so forgiving of the fact that Obi-Wan often slipped his homework deadlines or received mediocre grades was a _miracle_. If nothing else, Master Ben was a blessing for his patience. He never got irritated when Obi-Wan struggled, be it in his saber-play, or his Force Techniques, or his coursework. Now that Obi-Wan wasn’t collapsing into bed after every evening meal or struggling to rise in the morning, Master Ben spent those last few quiet hours of the day walking him through his homework and answering his questions, the ones Obi-Wan wouldn’t dare ask the teacher in front of his class. It made things so much easier, and his Master always seemed to know just the right way to explain things so that Obi-Wan could understand them, when he so often felt lost in his regular lectures.

So yes, he spent his mornings in classes and his afternoons in training and his evenings studying, but for the first time since he was graduated from the crèche to the initiate dorms, he felt like he wasn’t _failing_ as a Jedi.

Most days, anyway.

“I’m working on my history project.” Obi-Wan finally answers her question.

“You’re studying the Temple?” Siri asks, leaning further over his shoulder to squint at the data on the screen.

“I’m studying a lot of Temples.” Obi-Wan replies. “Every Temple within the last millennia.”

Which was a nightmare. He’d thought finding the right temples to fit his timeframe was difficult, but collating the data on the Jedi who served those temples he had to do almost entirely by hand. Honestly, it was almost as if someone had written the archive algorithms to specifically make his research project as difficult as sentiently possible.

“Yikes.” Siri makes a face. “Sounds dull.”

“Some of it’s actually fascinating.” Obi-Wan remarks. “There was one temple, completely radical sect, that dedicated itself to the study of time. They wanted to see if they could move through time by completely releasing themselves into the Force.”

“Did they?” Siri asks, intrigued.

“No idea.” Obi-Wan shrugs. “I couldn’t even find out where the Temple was. All I found was a Missing in Action report which verified that the Temple did exist, and that the twenty-nine Jedi who studied there just vanished.”

“Creepy.” Siri deadpans. “What about the rest of it?”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth and hesitates, sheets and sheets of flimsiplast scattered around his terminal that are beginning to lead to something he feels…

He doesn’t know what he feels. He hasn’t made sense of it yet. He just knows, that whatever it is…it’s important.

It’s going to mean something.

_My master does nothing without purpose_. Obi-Wan knows. He also knows that Master Ben gets a look in his eye when he asks Obi-Wan how this project is going, like he knows something, but he’s just waiting for Obi-Wan to confirm it, which is a lot of pressure, but at the same time…

_He trusts me_.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Obi-Wan equivocates, to Siri’s pinch-browed consternation.

~*~

“You do not get to step into this office unless you are decontaminated.” Ni Hiella snaps when his shadow darkens her doorway, not even looking up from the tightly controlled chaos of her desk. Across the room, Healer Vokara Che, in a similar state of manic focus, twitches a lekku in agreement.

“I am as sterile as it is possible for me to be.” Ben drawls somewhat snippily. “Your padawan _thoroughly_ saw to that.”

Ni Hiella grunts, and Healer Che clicks her tongue.

“Find me whichever _shaavit hun dan_ brought this virus back to the temple, Master Naasade, and I will listen to your complaints. I have sixty-seven initiates and twelve knights currently spewing fluids and crying in misery.”

“I’m aware of that, actually.” Ben remarks softly, and Ni Hiella looks up sharply, pinning him with a violet, bloodshot stare. “I think my…ah…sock drawer in a trash compactor might be of some service, there.” He says.

“What did I just hear come out of your mouth?” Vokara Che asks, looking thoroughly disturbed. “Your what?”

“Don’t mind his idiocy, Voka.” Ni Hiella waves a hand, already rising and moving towards Ben. “Are you sure?” She asks.

“No.” Ben says. “But I am hopeful. From what I’ve been told, the symptoms closely resemble something I picked up in the Meridian Sector. _Years_ ago.” He adds, when Vokara Che shoots him a venomous look of rising fury. “I promise you I did not carry it into the temple.”

The twi’lek Healer nods and returns to her work, switching slides in an analyzer and bending to inspect the readouts.

“Right.” Hiella nods. “Follow me.”

Ben does, staying in her shadow as they slip through the bustle and harmonic chaos of a full healing ward and into a small examination room. Ni Hiella and a droid immediately set to work to draw a biological sample to analyze, and Ben hardly even notices the blood being drawn.

“If this turns out to be the same, you should tell me how you contracted the virus.” Ni Hiella says.

“To be honest, I don’t remember.” Ben replies. “My life at the time was…demanding. I only ever paused to acknowledge I was sick when I could no longer perform my duties, much to the aggravation of my…colleagues.” Ben corrects himself just in time, almost having said ‘my troops’. “They rather wished I would learn to rest more. Or at least report more expediently to medical, which was hypocritical of them.”

“A sentiment this entire Temple shares, Master Naasade.” She remarks dryly. “It seems you’ve yet retained that habit.”

“I recently slept quite well, actually.” Ben’s lips twitch. “The most peaceful twelve hours of sleep I’ve gotten in years. What _did_ you give me?”

“Not a sedative.” Ni Hiella slows her movements, looking away from the analyzer to peer contemplatively at him. She looks worried. “How do you feel?”

“There weren’t any lasting adverse effects. Overall, I’d say the experience was quite pleasant. I do trust you not to poison me, Master Healer.” He smiles.

“That is not what I asked.” She says, and Ben frowns quizzitively.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.” He tells her. “I feel _fine_.”

“Ben.”

Oh dear.

“When was the last time you felt happy?” She asks.

“I find joy where I can.” Ben replies, eyeing her eyeing him.

“You do.” She agrees. “But that isn’t happiness. Hells, that isn’t even contentment. Ben, do you know what I feel every time you walk into the room?”

“I’d rather not.” He sighs.

“You feel like a bruise. A deep dull ache that flares and fades and never goes away, and that’s when you’re _calm_.” She says. “You hurt, do you understand that? I can feel it, and it _hurts_.”

“It wasn’t a sedative.” Ben remarks. “It was a mood enhancer.”

“I tailored it especially to your neuro-chemical panel. I figured you would spend an evening relaxed and giggling and instead you immediately passed out and remained unconscious for twelve hours. Another two and I would have had to declare a coma and spent six months on suspension for egregious misuse of authority.”

“I assured Chief Healer Quoorup that I did not find your actions to be in violation of your ethics and that while your methods were unorthodox I cannot and would not claim to have been _harmed_ by them.” Ben says.

“For which I am grateful.” Ni Hiella nods in respect. “But the fact remains that your response was…frightening, Ben.”

“I can’t help what my experiences have made of me, Hiella.”

“A Soul Healer might be able to-“

“And I cannot share them.” Ben adds firmly, irrevocably. “And you cannot force me to so long as I remain rational and in full possession of my senses, which you cannot claim I am not.”

“And I do not want to.” Ni Heilla says, just as firmly. “I only want to help you, Master Naasade. I am not your enemy.”

Ben smiles faintly. “If I considered you an enemy, Master Hiella, I would not have let you abscond with my padawan. How is he doing, by the way?”

“Let me? Bold claim.” She says dryly, and then reconsiders. If he had seen her as an enemy, she would never have been allowed so close so freely. “He’s doing well, though he frets over his own progress more than he should. Does he not know how remarkable he is?”

“Only through dedication.” Ben says.

“That’s precisely what I’m talking about.” The zeltron expresses, turning back to the analyzer to parse through strands of genetic and semi-genetic coding, looking for the markers of the virus’s own code. “He’ll admit to his own shortcomings, but he never allows them to deny him the attempt. Do you know how many of us – not just students, but even some Masters! – who will turn away from so much simply because they think it is outside what they are capable of?”

“Do or do not.” Ben replies bitterly. “There is no try. Yes, I know exactly how often the Jedi will simply _do not_.”

Ni Heilla grimaces slightly, and Ben reminds himself to mellow his feelings, for her sake.

“I am proud of him.” Ben says.

“Perhaps you should tell him that more often.” She says in soft chastisement. “He certainly deserves the praise.”

“I try.” Ben says, hesitating. There are moments upon moments when he can feel nothing but a warm glow of pride and joy for what Obi-Wan accomplishes, but too often he chokes on the words for the memory of his own failures that shadow his padawan’s every accomplishment.

Obi-Wan is succeeding, but all Ben can remember is where he failed, and it is that double-life dichotomy that strangles him even when he knows his padawan deserves better.

“I try.” Ben repeats.


	9. Chapter 9

“Obi-Wan, what are you doing?”

“Hm?” He doesn’t so much as look up, and Tahl is simply…bemused.

“Should you not be with your Master at this time?” Tahl inquires, though to be fair she’s secretly pleased he isn’t. Which is invirtuous enough that it is probably something she should meditate on.

“Mn.” Obi-Wan hums, and now Tahl is….still bemused. The boy has overtaken several data terminals and dragged over an additional desk. The desk is littered with layers of flimsiplast that he is currently scouring and marking with a vibrant orange ink, circling several selections and making small notations in the margins that draw the archivist in Tahl to the surface, luring her closer. “He won’t mind.” Obi-Wan mutters.

“Has he pushed you to neglect your studies in favor of his training? This looks…rough.” Tahl inquires, trying to read the plasts upside down, which is easy for an archivist, and exceedingly difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the kowakian monkey-lizard scratch that was this padawans short-hand.

“Not in the least.” Obi-Wan retorts with a tone Tahl is quickly becoming familiar with. Padawan Kenobi, it seems, is losing patience with those who besmirch his Master’s honor. Padawan Kenobi, like his master, gets snippy when he’s short on patience.

“Then…what is this?” Tahl asks again, admittedly surprised to see the boy deviating from his master’s regimen without permission.

“My master assigned me a history project.” He looks up, if only to scowl at Tahl’s hand as it reaches for one of the plasts.

“Oh?” She prompts, fingers twitching as she retracts the offending hand.

“I think I’ve finally figured out why.” He says.

“One would hope you’d understand that from the start, padawan.” Tahl teases. He turns his scowl from her hand and lifts it up to her.

“That isn’t what I meant at all.” He says.

~*~

Qui-Gon Jinn is at a loss.

He has been quite neatly duped into a situation which has left him floundering, and he has not felt so awkward nor uncertain since his padawan days. Say nothing else of Master Yan Dooku if not this: He instilled within all his students a sense of dignity.

Luckily, his new padawan did not seem to suffer the same lack of self-assurance.

“Do you like it?” Sian asks, looking up at him with iridescent blue eyes and a reserved smile, radiating pleasure in the Force.

“Ah…” Qui-Gon honestly does not know what to say. She was a perfectly self-sufficient youngling, if nothing else, and had wasted no time upon accepting to be his Padawan in moving into his quarters, trading her initiate whites for padawan tunics, and getting her Ident and passcodes updated.

She even made sure she was already registered in the Temple Net as the Padawan of Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

And…And she had gone to get a haircut, apparently.

It was not a traditional padawan cut, by any means, nor a traditional cut of _any_ sort.

This morning, his padawan had had hair long enough to brush her lower back.

Now, the sides of her head were shaved down to a fuzz, save her padawan braid, she had a chin-length fringe parted to either side, and what remained in the center was braided up and back into a single brown-and-white tail.

“I will say it suits you.” Qui-Gon recovered, feeling slightly trapped by the sheen in her gaze. She blinks softly and then smiles with confidence.

“Good.” She bounces, and then turns and dashes into the kitchenette. “I’ll make tea.”  
 She reports, and Qui-Gon has the feeling he’s being rewarded for having selected a correct response.

“Force help me.” He mutters, lifting a hand to press against his temple.

~*~

For such a self-contained man, Ben reflects, Plo Koon is both a shockingly bold and cunningly radical son of a sith-spawn.

To be perfectly honest, he had caught Ben completely by surprise.

Ben had been aware that something underhanded was about when the Kel Dor master strode opposite him in the arena, and several other Kel Dor knights discreetly placed themselves at intervals around the sparring circle, pillars among the shifting observers.

The Kel Dor had the natural advantages of height and weight, as well as two decades more experience. There had always been a grace around the older master that Ben admired, a passive attunement to the Force that eluded most Jedi and hedged against the Order’s tenents on innapropriate use.

Ben had been expecting a fight, perhaps one of the few real fights he’d get in this present time. Plo Koon was not a showman, and even during the war he’d played his skills close to the vest, but Ben had always known the master to be one of the best.

Ben draws in a sharp, instinctively terrified breath when his ears pop in a horribly familiar manner, and the burning flash of green that bursts out of Plo Koons body surprises him in extremis.

For a heartbeat, his instincts fail him. Ben does not move to catch the lightning on his saber and ground it. He has not done that in nearly five years. On Tatooine, his part of the wastes was subject to clear-sky lightning, and every sandstom carried charge. Ben had taught himself to do more than defend – he had taught himself to channel and redirect that energy, and that is what his instincts tell him to do now.

Except-

He is not on the open desert. He is in a crowded arena of equally shocked Jedi, and has nowhere to aim.

Horrified for the both of them, Ben slings the energy right back at Plo.

To his relief, the other Master catches it on his blade, and another Kel Dor knight – Sha Koon, the Master’s niece, steps forward, and together they ground the energy, which snaps and crackles in spite of being disconnected from Master Koon until they probably disperse it, a rippling wave of static buzzing along the floor and winking out.

Ben is mesmerized. He has faced Sith Lightning more times than he could count, and always it was a sickly purple energy, painful and draining, that sapped at the victim and burned far worse than it should for how little damage it caused. It was also only effective so long as the Sith could concentrate, pulsing from their hands and fueled from within.

This was nothing like that, and that was terrifying in its own right.

“Kel Dor have a natural affinity for electrical discharge, Master Naasade.” Master Koon calls through his mask. “Dora is riven with atmospheric storms, and we are well adapted.” He explains, and in his explanation asks a silent and poignant question.

 _Where does your affinity come from_?

“Yet I am still surprised Master Yoda allowed you to perform such a feat indoors, Master Koon.” Ben says.

“Ask permission, he did not.” Yoda grumbles, appearing at the edge of the circle, silver hair standing on end. “Forbid it, I would have. Forbid it, I still might!”

“All necessary precautions were taken.” Koon says, negating any apologetic implications as he gestures to his kinsmen around the circle.

“Hrmgph.” Yoda grumbles disapprovingly.

“And if I had aimed for the ceiling?” Ben retorts hotly. “Or the floor?”

Two powerful Jedi masters made neat poles for that much energy to bounce between, but fully directed, or poorly unleashed, it would have torn through stone and utilities and _people_ to devastating effect.

“Master Naasade,” Plo Koon offers him his fully and utmost attention. “I did not even suspect you could aim it at all. Emerald Lightning is a Kel Dorian technique.”

Ben stares back at the master, who sits on the Council and knows where – _when_ , he has come from, and holds the hints of why.

Plo Koon nods in solemn recognition, an insight confirmed, and bows out of the challenge. “Impressive as is may have seemed.” The councilor admits. “It is an incredibly draining technique. Generally, it is what one refers to as a finishing move.”

“Generally.” Ben agrees pointedly.

Now he knows why the Wolfpack was such a tight-lipped and righteously over-protective platoon. Commander Wolffe had been no different than Cody, standing the long watch while Ben sought solace, or was laid out in medical; no different than Rex, acting ahead of orders on sheer instinct and dumb luck, leaping without looking because Anakin was just ahead or just behind.

 _They loved us_ , He knows, as he knew it once before. _That wasn’t a lie, and that made it worse_.


	10. Chapter 10

“You’re loitering.” Adi Gallia accuses, frowning sharply at the human master before her. Beside her – or just behind, her new Padawan is flagging, worn down simply by trailing after Adi today, though stalwartly refusing to admit to fatigue.

She would learn to overcome that. Eventually.

“Am I?” Master Naasade inquires, in that infuriatingly polite manner he carries.

“This is the fourth time I have seen you today, Master Naasade, and as of yet I have not a single explanation for your presence here.” Adi says. “So yes, as you are not conducting any sort of senatorial related duties and appear to in fact just be wandering the halls, you are loitering. Or you are lost.” She adds snidely, earning a twitch of his eyebrow.

“Hm.” He humms, and looks past her, down at Padawan Tachi, who is drooping.

“Are you tired, Knight Gallia?” He inquires, lifting his gaze back up to her when she bristles at him for peering at her padawan. Which is a childishly jealous response she really needs to overcome, protective instincts or not.

Heavens of light above, no one had warned her about the ferocity of protective instinct that came with claiming a padawan. She’d nearly shoved Senator Orn Fre Ta for standing too close to Siri this morning, not to mention how she’d almost reached out and snapped the wrist of one of the Munn junior senators for shaking her hand.

“No.” Adi replies stubbornly.

“I find that…intriguing.” He says, and Adi can feel her awareness unspool around her, her senses sharpened for danger, just because of the lilt of his voice and the look in his eyes when he says that.

“Why?” She bites the bait.

“Just something I noticed during the Rilor 4 crisis that has finally formed into a coherent thought. How long would you say we were in the Senate Dome during that incident?” He inquires.

Adi has to search her memory, that event already buried beneath the monolith of follow-on duties and incidents since then which she has fielded for the Jedi. “Thirty hours or so.” She answers him.

“Thirty hours or so.” He repeats. “And you don’t find it odd that there was not a single Master among us, aside from yourself, who was not nearly unconscious on their feet by the end of it? I myself was so flagged that I required a rest. Master Jinn fell asleep where he sat, Master Fisto fell asleep _standing up_ , and yet…we were only here perhaps thirty hours or so.”

“Dealing with politics is a trying affair, Master Naasade.” Adi says dismissively. “For which many have not the wherewithal. It is mentally exhausting, and Jedi are more susceptible to that than most.”

“Of that I have no contest nor doubt, Knight Gallia.” He aceedes, which makes her feel even more suspicious. “But so is a three-day mediation, and most initiates endure that rite by the time they are nine.”

Adi frowns. “What point are you trying to make, Master Naasade?” She asks directly. Part of her enduring dislike of this man is that he is a riddle wrapped in an illusion and every interaction with him feels like a test. Politicians are less trying on her nerves.

“That I have done nothing whatsoever today except walk around these halls and have a few conversations with those here whom I might call friends, and yet I feel just as exhausted as if I had just spent a ten-day on the battlefield.” He says, and Adi feels a chill ripple across her skin even before he asks her directly; “Do you not find that to seem unnatural?”

“I…”Adi glances down at Siri, who is frowning sharply and stubbornly attempting to look not tired. “I hadn’t noticed.” Adi admits, feeling worse.

“A credit to your excellent shielding technique, Knight Gallia. Conciously or unconsciously, you’ve learned how to protect yourself from that effect, whatever it may be.” He says, almost warmly. “But others are less fortunate.”

“You think it’s deliberate.” Adi says sharply, feeling a warning creep at the edges of her senses, though the Force itself feels…

Adi shudders, wanting to run from this place, or scratch and peel at her skin. The Force feels as it always does in the senate – staticky and numbing, full of white noise and frustration.

Her master had told her that that was normal, just as Adi had told Siri.

“I think,” He says carefully, “that Jedi are discouraged by the sensation.”

Discouraged. _How quaintly put_ , Adi thinks angrily, remembering every one of a thousand incidents where other Jedi rebuffed joining her efforts in the Senate, passing off smaller tasks and duties to her to avoid the Dome when they could so easily have taken care of it themselves. She had not minded – it was her responsibility to liase between the Order and the Senate after all, but it was…lonely, at times. She had had her master, at least, until he retired and returned to his homeworld to spend out his last few years. He’d passed in his sleep less than two years after her knighting. He was old, but not that old. They said stress shortened his life.

“I see.” Adi says neutrally, though the look that passes between them is anything but.

“I don’t.” Siri mutters under her breath. Master Naasade huffs a laugh and Adi rests a hand on the crown of her padawans head, earning an indignant look.

“I will explain it to you later, padawan.” Adi promises. “But perhaps Master Naasade makes a point – we have had a long day, and we should go home.”

“But you have to speak with-“ Siri protests.

“It can wait.” Adi says.

“Is it because of me?” Siri asks. “I’m not tired! I can keep up! Your work is important.”

“Siri.” Adi says firmly, and the girl drops her gaze, though her jaw is still set tensely. Adi has to admit that her padawan will never lack for sheer force of will. It was why Adi chose her, after all.

But stubbornness was still stubbornness, and one had to tend to it carefully.

~*~

Obi-Wan paces the edges of the room, his body thrumming with energy and tension and his mind hauntingly devoid of all coherent thought; slightly numb, in fact.

He’s been pacing for a while, actually. Hours. He paced and paced waiting for his master to return, and then – mortifyingly – all but threw a datapad and a pile of flimsiplast at the older man and then continued pacing. His master didn’t even chastise him for it, which – made him angry, actually. Obi-Wan had finished his task, and the reward was no reward at all.

And his master had – suspected, at least.

Obi-Wan would have appreciated a warning.

So he paces, and his master carefully reads through the report Obi-Wan has spent days ordering, reordering, and compiling into as concise and clean a dissemination as he could, occasionally sifting through the pile of flimsiplast to confirm the data his padawan has produced.

The quiet is deafening. Obi-Wan wants to explode, or go curl up under his comforter and never come out again. He wants to argue, and he wants to sit in silence, and instead – instead – he paces, and his master reads.

“An incredibly thorough dissection of facts, Obi-Wan.” His master finally comments, setting the datapad down and giving the agitated teen his full focus. “Was it because you doubted your own conclusion or because you wanted to vent the spite you felt for how directly it impacted your own life?”

“Both.” Obi-Wan snaps angrily, and then winces, scolding himself for the display.

“Ah.” His master comments mildly.

“That’s it?” Obi-Wan demands. “Master – you knew! How could – why-“

“I suspected, but I did not have this.” He lifts Obi-Wan’s report. “There was much, so much, padawan, I did not have. So much you can only put together…after.”

“That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!” Obi-Wan vents, and Master Ben offers him one of those sheepish, self-depreciative smiles. Through their bond, Obi-Wan can feel elusive glimpses of pain and guilt and a small thread of pride and sorrow directed at Obi-Wan himself.

“Some day, padawan, I will explain everything.” Master Ben promises, which does absolutely nothing to make Obi-Wan feel better. “But today…are you ready?” He asks.

“Ready?” Obi-Wan repeats stupidly.

“To take this before the Council.” Master Ben says.

Obi-Wan freezes mid-step, shocked and mortified at the idea of presenting himself before _the High Council of the Jedi Order_ , but…

But then there is Master Ben, looking at him like Obi-Wan was capable of everything. Then there was Shmi Skywalker, the padawan forbidden from being a padawan, and Shaak Ti, who was all but outcast for claiming her anyway, and…and there was Obi-Wan, and what almost was. A sad story repeated over and over and forgotten.

“I…yes.” Obi-Wan nods. “I can take this before the Council. I have to.” He realizes, speaking aloud.

~*~

Actually standing before a full session of the Jedi Council was exactly as terrifying at Obi-Wan had expected it to be, particularly when they are displeased that they have been called together first thing in the morning. Obi-Wan himself was nothing but jumping nerves and dark circles beneath his eyes after having been forced to spend a restless night waiting to be able to stand before them and speak.

He hadn’t slept at all, and eventually both he and his master had ended up side by side on the sofa, leaning into each other and not saying a word as the shadows deepened, lay dark, and then lfited again.

“Speak to us, you would, Padawan Kenobi?” Master Yoda inquires, voice still slightly raspy with sleep.

“I would, Master Yoda.” Obi-Wan swallows tightly, and still spends a minute in stammered silence, gathering himself together. The air in the room in dry and clean, and the skyline is tinged with morning pink and blue. The Force is with him.

Obi-Wan begins.

“Masters, as you know, I have been pulled from my standard history course and placed on an assigned self-study. I am here today to report…report what I have uncovered, as it bears great impact on the state of the Order today.”

His statement earns a few frown, and a few more displeased looks – in his Master’s direction, not his. Obi-Wan continues, as none of them protest or ask questions.

“My master assigned me to study not the history of what the Jedi have done, but the history of how the Jedi have progressed since the last war with the sith.” Obi-Wan pauses, taking a careful breath and feeling the solid pillar of support that was his master standing just behind him. “A thousand years ago, more or less, the Jedi underwent what we now call the Ruusan Reformation. That was…my beginning, so to speak.” Obi-Wan explains. “The Ruusan Reformation united the Jedi Order with the Galactic Republic, and reshaped the tenets of the Jedi Code in an effort to overcome past shortcomings. A measure of this change was the rewriting of the Jedi code.”

“There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force.” Obi-Wan recites. “This is the code as it stands today, where once we held emotion yet peace;”

“Ignorance, yet knowledge.”

“Passion, yet serenity.”

“Chaos, yet harmony.”

“Death, yet the Force.” Obi-Wan thinks the old code suits him better, as it suits his master, because it allows him acknowledgement that he does feel, that he is ignorant, that there is passion, and that chaos is not ruin, but he would never dare say that aloud, not to this august body. As it was, as it was, he doubted very much that they’d like him after today. “This shifted ideal also included the restriction on attachments. Jedi were no longer allowed to marry, to have children, to maintain a household outside the Order.”

Obi-Wan hadn’t even known that they had been able to, once. Hadn’t known that Jedi weren’t always so secular, so insular. The story of Nomi Sunrider, a Grand Master of the Order and the one to defeat the Sith Lord Ulic Qel-Droma was still told in the crèche. Discovering the stories of Andur Sunrider, her husband, and Vima Sunrider, her daughter, had shaken him to the core.

“In the centuries following, the order forbid a master from taking more than one apprentice at a time.” Obi-Wan says, rushing through what should have been far more information as his nerves frayed and his calm started to elude him once more. “The order added a restriction on the age of padawans to begin their training. Then a restriction on the age of those taken in as initiates. When midi-chlorians were discovered and methods of testing midichlorian counts became commonly accessable, the order added a minimum requirement of midichlorian concentration to those it was allowed to accept into the crèche.” Dates slipped his mind, explanations of the Order’s recorded reasonings drying up in his throat.

“Masters, at the time of the last Great Sith War, there were nearly three _million_ Jedi and over two-hundred temples. Today, there are slightly less than fourteen-thousand of us, and barely seventeen active temples, if one counts Ilum. There are nine-thousand, seven-hundred and forty-two Jedi here at Coruscant, two-thousand-and-one-hundred at the temple on Corellia, roughly seven-hundred at Jedha, and sixteen hundred or so Jedi scattered between the other fourteen temples.” There are too many numbers to see it clearly, so Obi-Wan will state it plainly, a blunt and brutal truth. “And dropping.” He adds.

“Masters, the Jedi Order is dying.”


End file.
